Your Gayness Is A Hobby

"Stop using the word gay, because implicit in the notion of a gay identity is the fact that they’re born gay and that it should be a fundamental human right, but fundamental human rights are based on human nature not on capricious desires. If fundamental human rights are based on capricious desires, guess what, we’d have every group on this planet with a different hobby arguing for fundamental rights and benefits based on the fact that they play hockey, based on the fact that they play basketball or surf, or anything that they’re interested in." - Anti-gay activist Ryan Sorba, speaking at Awakening 2012, a convention of hate group leaders.

VIRGINIA: Anti-Gay Christianists Hold Conference On How To Hate More

Many of the anti-gay asshats regularly covered here on JMG were gathered at Liberty University this weekend for a strategizing session titled "The Awakening."

For the panelists, the biggest “gay threat” is not just over Christian ideology but over national security. Matt Barber, the panel’s moderator and a dean at Liberty University, said he served in the military for 12 years. Barber made a case that promoting gays in the military presents a national threat because most gay military men will be more focused on their attraction to other men than on their military duties, saying it comes down to the soldier who “has your back or the one who wants to rub it.” He also brought up the argument that the high rate of HIV and AIDS in the gay community presents a health risk when it comes to battlefield transfusions. “Homosexuality is the greatest threat to the criminalization of Christianity,” said Robert Knight, executive director for the American Civil Rights Union and a former editor of the Los Angeles Times.

In the clip below, anti-gay activist Ryan Sorba urges attendees to stop using the word "gay."

Inside Porno Pete's Hate Academy

Last week Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta sent two undercover spies to Porno Pete's Hate Academy. Today Mehta posts the first in a three-part series exposing what went on. Here's a haters quote recap from "Perry and Maria":

Matt Barber: We should not be politically correct. It’s natural for gays to be reviled. It’s important to focus on the health risks of homosexuality, but we need to be aggressive and unapologetically loving.
Greg Quinlan: If you Bible-thump or talk about sex, it turns pro-gays off. If you give them the science, you sound like somebody in authority and they don’t know how to respond to that.
Arthur Goldberg: We need to use the term “homosexual” instead of “gay” because it has a more negative connotation. No one is gay; they’re only “gay identified.”
Cliff Kincaid: This issue of homosexuality affects you because gays are demanding to give blood. The hemophiliacs are outraged by the homosexual lobby saying they have a right to give blood. They want to force themselves into the blood supply in a callous and arrogant manner. Mothers need to speak up. Mothers, your children are at risk!
Laurie Higgins: Parents need to remove their children from public schools. Even after doing that, they need to make law changes because our taxes go to the public schools. When we are silent on this issue, we teach our children through role-modeling to be cowardly conformists. We bequeath a legacy of much greater oppression to our children and our grandchildren. At least I can say to my children that I did everything I could.
Rena Lindevaldsen: We need to work to completely eliminate public schools — government schools — and push a Christian/Biblical model of educating our children.
Ryan Sorba: We need to unify behind common winning talking points. Boycott the term “gay.” They are in no way attached to any kind of identity because it’s not an identity. They’re not functioning in accord with their design. We need to repeat over and over and over again that there is no scientific evidence that people are born gay. There is no study that proves causation. Psychiatrists need to reclassify homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Matt Barber: At gay pride parades, they have sex in the street in front of children.

Read Hemant Mehta's entire expose. With these two spies, the spies from Truth Wins Out, and the other spy that outed herself to Hemant's people, how many actual students were even there?

The Professors Of Hate

Porno Pete LaBarbera has posted the names of the "instructors" at his upcoming Academy Of Hate, where young Christofascists will learn how to more effectively work to ensure bigotry and violence against America's LGBT citizens. The list is a who's who of assholery and includes Arthur Goldberg from JONAH, the Jewish "ex-gay" group whose "therapy" includes nude self-groping in the presence of creepy older "ex-gay" dudes. HAWT. The instructors and their children of the corn will meet in early August in LaBarbera's lavishly appointed basement dungeon in suburban Chicago.

Olbermann On CPAC Day Two

Keith Olbermann recaps yesterday's crazies including Ryan Sorba's GOProud meltdown.

CPAC Speaker Booed Off The Stage After Denouncing GOProud

Ryan Sorba of California Young Americans for Freedom got roundly booed by the CPAC audience after he denounced the organizers for allowing "GOPride" to attend. That's a rather unexpected reaction on the part of the audience to be sure, unless in some very unlikely event, GOProud had managed to pack out the large hall with their own people.

UPDATE: It turns out we've heard of Ryan Sorba before. And in another fascinating development, "Ryan Sorba" is now a trending topic on Twitter, where most with a #CPAC10 hashtag are attacking him.

The Heckler's Veto

On Wednesday, students at the all-female Smith College invaded the auditorium where anti-gay author Ryan Sorba was giving a speech in support of his new book, The Born Gay Hoax. Chanting and banging pots, the students forced Sorba to abandon his lecture.

And played right into the right's evil hands.

Wingnuts continuously accuse progressives of stifling dissent, of shouting down the opposition. Which is exactly what happened at Smith College. Protest yes, but do it outside the venue. Yes, it's thrilling to see so many passionate Smith students defending themselves against Sorba's asshattery and perhaps we can forgive their youthful zeal. And yes, Sorba was sort of asking for it by appearing at the famously pro-gay Smith College. But that shoe can be worn on the other foot. We wouldn't stand for that, would we?